Wrongful Death

Publishers Weekly

Kerr is a medical malpractice lawyer who spent a year in The Hague observing Bosnian war crimes trials. At first glance, he might be trying to cram too much of his own experience into his second thriller (after 1999's Harmful Intent), but everything winds up fitting together beautifully in this strong and very moving tale. Lawyer Elliot Stone, grieving the sudden death of his wife and fed up with defending railroad clients against the claims of accident victims, needs a career and life change. He takes a job with the War Crimes Tribunal, falls in love with a beautiful and funny Dutch/Indonesian taphonomist (a specialist in the analysis of biological remains) named Quierin and comes home to Colorado after two years, in hopes of getting a judgeship. Instead, he lets his friend Dr. Hans Leitner--an expert medical witness known as "Dr. God" because of his skill in convincing juries--talk him into becoming a conservator in a complicated case involving a man severely brain-damaged in a train accident, who is also accused of attacking his wife, June, and putting her into an irreversible coma. The book's climax is a superbly rendered trial sequence, in which Stone and June's gutsy college-age daughter fight for June's rights against a team of heavyweights that includes Dr. Leitner. Without stretching a point or missing a beat, Kerr manages to show how the evils done in places like Bosnia can mirror the actions of people thousands of miles away. It's an impressive performance and a stunning, inspiring read.

Publishers Weekly

Kerr is a medical malpractice lawyer who spent a year in The Hague observing Bosnian war crimes trials. At first glance, he might be trying to cram too much of his own experience into his second thriller (after 1999's Harmful Intent), but everything winds up fitting together beautifully in this strong and very moving tale. Lawyer Elliot Stone, grieving the sudden death of his wife and fed up with defending railroad clients against the claims of accident victims, needs a career and life change. He takes a job with the War Crimes Tribunal, falls in love with a beautiful and funny Dutch/Indonesian taphonomist (a specialist in the analysis of biological remains) named Quierin and comes home to Colorado after two years, in hopes of getting a judgeship. Instead, he lets his friend Dr. Hans Leitneran expert medical witness known as Dr. God because of his skill in convincing juriestalk him into becoming a conservator in a complicated case involving a man severely brain-damaged in a train accident, who is also accused of attacking his wife, June, and putting her into an irreversible coma. The book's climax is a superbly rendered trial sequence, in which Stone and June's gutsy college-age daughter fight for June's rights against a team of heavyweights that includes Dr. Leitner. Without stretching a point or missing a beat, Kerr manages to show how the evils done in places like Bosnia can mirror the actions of people thousands of miles away. It's an impressive performance and a stunning, inspiring read. (May) Forecast: Kerr's first thriller was a winner, and this one should cement his reputation. With the right promotion and handling, Wrongful Death could be headed for bestseller lists. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In his second novel, Kerr (Harmful Intent) presents an intricately entwined plot, with many different story lines being told at the same time. This is first and foremost a medical and legal thriller about a comatose woman, June Stillwell, who is eventually murdered in a long-term care facility, but multiple subplots include the protagonist's grief over his own deceased wife, his growing affection for a Dutch forensic pathologist, and his feelings of guilt for his conduct as a former railroad attorney, which led, ultimately, to the situation in which June becomes a victim of her husband's rage. Also, based upon the author's own experience as a war crimes journalist in the Hague, the novel delves into issues surrounding the prosecution of European war criminals in the former Yugoslavia. These subplots get knotted together with the underlying moral concept that the "greatest evil is the evil that can pass for good," which diminishes the overall impact and reduces events to a tangled tapestry of courtroom drama. Wrongful Death has a lot of potential as a fast-paced thriller but fails to fulfill its promise. An optional purchase for public libraries. Jill M. Tempest, Ocean Springs Municipal Lib., MS Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Densely woven legal thriller explores the human-scale motives for Balkan genocide through a painstaking analogy to a home-front civil suit for wrongful death. Two years ago, former railroad attorney Elliot Stone served as conservator for Dale Stillwell, a brakeman crippled in a switching-yard accident. June Mooney, the switching engineer whose train had accidentally crushed Stillwell, had nursed him devotedly unto holy wedlock, and at the fadeout, both Stillwell and his bride were in a position to benefit handsomely from a railroad company settlement-though Stone can't help but be disturbed by Stillwell's dissociated remark: "I'm going to k-kill her." Now, back from a horrific stint as the lead prosecutor in the case of a small-town mayor accused of ordering the murder of all the non-Serb male patients in a local hospital, Stone is plunged into the Stillwell case again in an unexpected new capacity. June Stillwell-who's been hospitalized, the comatose victim of a vicious attack for which her husband is the sole, albeit uncharged, suspect-needs a conservator herself, especially since her daughter April plans to file a civil suit against Dale Stillwell. Unfortunately, the entire settlement Stillwell was awarded will be exempt from any judgment unless the charge is wrongful death. And then June, who'd slipped back from surprising progress into deep coma again, providently dies. After preliminary skirmishing, Stone and his one-time railroad adversary, Paige Jorritsma, join forces in the suit against Stillwell, duly noting that he's protected by a dream team of legal talent, and by Dr. Hans Leiter, the same All-Star psychiatrist who'd worked shoulder to shoulder with Stone in Greater Serbia.Readers who can tough out the methodical opening chapters in which Kerr (Harmful Intent, 1999, etc.) sets up the parallels between Stone's Balkan sabbatical and the Stillwell calamity will be rewarded with a tour de force cross-examination and a provocative meditation on vanity, betrayal, and evil.